Top exec at the world's largest hedge fund says to understand its unique culture, look to a basketball game

With $150 billion in assets under management, Bridgewater
Associates isn't just the world's largest hedge fund. It's also a
company with a quirky and intense culture unique to any industry.

Its policies of "radical truth" and "radical transparency"
are based on a collection of lessons, known as "Principles," written
by its founder, chairman, co-CIO, and co-CEO Ray Dalio. At
Bridgewater's Westport, Connecticut offices, its 1,500 employees
rate each other's performance using an iPad app. Most meetings
are recorded, via an opt-in audio recorder or camera,
to possibly be scrutinized later.

It's an intense, unusual place that's not for everyone — 30% of
employees leave within their first two years — and
Dalio told Business Insider last year that he often found it
misrepresented by outsiders. "It can sound mean, crazy, or like a
cult to people who don't know what it's really like," he said.

But
in a recent interview with BI, Bridgewater co-CIO Bob Prince,
who's been with the firm since 1986, used the metaphor of a
basketball game to explain the company's approach.

He said:

"In a basketball game, there's radical transparency, right?
Because you've got five players on the court in little short
uniforms, and you've got a scoreboard, and you've got 20,000
people watching, and then you've got instant replays, and you've
got a post-game interview. If you lose the game, A, it's crystal
clear that you lost the game, and B, it's crystal clear why, and
we can pin it to the players on the court and the coach who put
him there and so forth.

"On a team, you may see that a three-point shooter might think
they're a rebounder, or that rebounder might think they're a
three-point shooter, but it becomes evident that they're not. But
if you just switch positions, maybe everything's great.

"The first thing that you have to do to put a team together is
you have to know what everybody's like. What are their strengths?
What are their weaknesses? And the real challenge when you have a
company is that it's not as visible as being 7 feet tall versus
5-foot-11. But truly, some people are more creative than others.
Some people are more analytical than others. Some people are
better at communicating. You have big differences in people —
they're just not as evident as on a basketball team.

"You have to find a way of figuring out what people are like, and
a big part of that is each person really has to want to know what
they're like. Because if I'm not open to an objective assessment
of what I'm like, it breaks down the whole system. My
defensiveness is going to break down that process."

Therefore, the way Prince sees it, managers and employees
shouldn't be withholding judgment of each other in the office, in
the same way they wouldn't on the court. And because someone's
build and style of play may be more obvious than someone's
thought process and skills, the latter set requires this "radical
truth" to unveil it.